Fox brands its former film arm

Fox Atomic Digital gets digital lease on life

Fox Atomic, the struggling genre film label shuttered in April, is being relaunched as Fox Digital Studios to pair up with Madison Avenue and produce a slate of original brand-backed projects for the Internet and other digital platforms.

David Worthen Brooks, formerly executive creative director of Fox Atomic Digital, will serve as creative director of the digital division and shepherd the unit’s branded entertainment offerings, which will be sponsored by marketers or have their products prominently featured within the video programming.

When it bowed in 2007, the now-defunct Atomic film division originally had a mandate to create digital content that targeted the youth demo and could court advertisers to help fund those properties.

Key in landing marketers will be Roger Mincheff, the founder of digital marketing agency Spacedog Media, which successfully found creative ways to integrate such brands as McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson, Mazda, Boost Mobile and Qantas Airways into comicbooks, or paired up with them to produce original entertainment projects for the Internet.

Mincheff’s title is senior VP of branded entertainment for digital content.

Levinsohn praised Mincheff as having “a proven track record across content, distribution, marketing and technology,” adding, “with Fox Digital Studios, we are leveraging our storytelling and production expertise to create a centralized unit solely focused on bringing consumers unique entertainment experiences on the Web and on mobile and gaming platforms.”

The first projects to come out of the new unit have not yet been disclosed.

But the timing of its creation comes as MySpace is looking to boost the amount of original video programming it offers on its website, while Fox is also seeking ways for the network to attract more dollars from advertisers — the creation of brand-backed entertainment has long been considered one lucrative way to do so.